Tim: You’ve commented before about my apparent penchant for songs from adverts, be they for tea, fizzy drink or yogurt; now let’s add a 2007 bank advert to the list, because when the songs are this good, I don’t care.
Tom: AdBlock Plus, and a lack of actual TV, means I managed to somehow avoid this. Let’s have a listen.
Tim: Because face it: it’s lovely, isn’t it?
Tom: Not bad, certainly.
Tim: Three components to this, really. First, the instrumentation, which is just standard dance backing until you consider the quiet, simple and yet brilliant two-bar loop in the background.
Tom: Crikey, that is just two bars, isn’t it? There’s occasional changes, but other than that it barely changes. I hadn’t even noticed that until you pointed it out.
Tim: Then there’s the vocal, which talks first about raining, but then also about what we’re going to do about everything, which is quite a hefty and ambitious subject for a short dance tune to deal with when you think about it. Then of course, there’s the ah-ah-ah-ah-etc that everybody knows, which is instantly recognisable, calming and, well, beautiful almost.
Tom: Almost. If you’ve been introduced to this via that particular operatic vocal, and you’re expecting it, maybe it’s a bit better – going in cold, it does seem a bit out of place.
Tim: Well most people were introduced to it that way – they saw the advert, and that then got so well-known it was fleshed out a bit a few months on to make this, now generally referred to as ‘that song off that bank advert’. And advert or otherwise, this is wonderful, and you can’t deny it.
Tom: I’m not going to go so far as ‘wonderful’. ‘Nice’, I’ll grant you.
Tim: Oh, fair enough. BUT I’ve just thought of another advert with lovely music from about the same time, which you should watch. Here.
Tom: There’s something wrong with you.